Productivity For Dummies

Chapter 21

Ten Ways to Beat Procrastination

In This Chapter

Discovering ways to get started and keep going

Using habits to overcome procrastination

Scheduling time to get it done

Procrastination is a habit of most human beings, putting off until tomorrow what should be done today. How do you tackle this age-old problem and ensure that the work gets done at the right time? Read on. In this chapter, I give you ten ways to beat procrastination.

Scheduling the First Step

My number-one tip for beating procrastination is to use your calendar. If you think something’s important enough, allocate a time for it in your calendar and get it done. Even if you don’t know exactly how to carry out a task, putting time in your calendar to focus your attention on it will help you to start making progress. Not sure how much time, attention or work is involved? Schedule half an hour to think it through. You can then do a mind map to help you visualise what’s involved. After you put some time into the job, you can see that it’s not so daunting after all. You can then start to plan the work you need to do and schedule some time to do it.

The calendar is a powerful way to visualise your work and the ...